Goodbye to another piece of old Trinidad

Change happens all the time. When it comes to a neighborhood, some call it progress, while others lament the passage of time. Regardless of the position you take, it can be jarring to wake up one day and find the things you're accustomed to no longer being there.

On our corner in Trinidad is the former home and office of Dr. Louis E. Lowman, M.D. Neighbors were born in that house and treated in his office. It was one of the only stand-alone homes in all of Trinidad. By the end of today or tomorrow, it will likely only be a memory, to be replaced by a six-unit condominium building. I'm putting these pictures online in hope that those who are interested in our history will have something to find when they go searching on the Internet, wondering what used to be at 1328 Montello Avenue NE before it was replaced with something modern and new.

(Photos by the author unless otherwise noted.)

Photo from Google Street View

Photo from Google Street View

Photo from Google Street View

Open letter to local stone masons

A solid low-stone retaining wall is about to become part of history (probably tomorrow). Do you know any stone masons in DC who could use this material? Let them know as soon as you can! Read on for more...

Titan of Trinidad noted that the church at the corner of 14th and Maryland NE has finally been demolished. This is the first step in the construction of the new "Maia" apartment building that will be built in its place.

I'm writing about the detritus of the construction project, though. As you can see from these pictures, there are thousands of bricks, many of them already broken into shards, remaining on site. There are many who would gladly take solid, century-old bricks to reuse them for other projects, but I'm afraid that it's probably too late for most of these solid pieces of history. We don't value recycling and reusing in this society to the extent that we should.

I'm concerned about this stone retaining wall that encircles much of the property. Surely the demolition crews will be removing it very soon. This is the kind of thing that simply isn't built these days - people use cheap cinder block construction for retaining walls instead.

There must be a stone mason in the DC area that would be interested in getting their hands on this material. I imagine someone could take this wall apart relatively quickly (certainly not as fast as a backhoe, but let's be realistic here!) and reuse the material elsewhere.

If you're reading this and you know someone who might fit this description, please pass the story along. I'd love to see some of this material reused instead of becoming backfill for a pit somewhere.

The new 9th Street Bridge

Here are a few photographs of the new 9th Street NE bridge over New York Avenue and the Ivy City Rail Yard (you can see the old and new bridge side-by-side on the latest imagery at Google Maps). DDOT says the bridge should be fully opened by May 2011. The bridge it is replacing was built in 1941 and has outlived its usefulness.

This is the northern approach to the bridge. Traffic heading southbound onto Mount Olivet Road towards Trinidad and Ivy City veers to the left onto the old bridge. Traffic heading towards the Capital City Market and downtown veer to the right onto the new bridge.

This is right at the base of the new bridge. Only one lane is open for now, but you can see the wider sidewalks and the bricked median.

This is looking north from the bridge. Less sun glare in this direction. You can see the bricked median more clearly. The bridge is wider for both cars and pedestrians, and has a more gentle, constant slope than the old bridge.